1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of correction, augmentation, and enhancement of vision. In particular, but not by way of limitation, one or more embodiments of the invention relate to an image transforming vision enhancement device, for example that may be utilized to transform images using color transformations and mapping, magnification, cropping, rotation, scaling, selection, and overlay of graphics or labels and generating time-varying images with flashing or changing features to indicate colors for example, or any combination thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vision enhancement devices such as specialized eyeglasses or contact lenses are known in the art. In particular, eyeglasses to assist colorblind users are known. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,819, Taylor teaches glasses with one clear and one colored lens, which assist colorblind users in distinguishing between colors that they normally find difficult to distinguish. Variations on this invention have included for example glasses with lenses of two different colors, as taught by Davis in U.S. Pat. No. 5,917,573, and glasses that can be manufactured with lenses that provide various shapes of spectral filters, as taught by Chen in US Patent Publication US20110090453. Contact lenses using the same principle of coloring one of the lenses are also known, as taught for example by Zeltzer in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,586,423 and 3,701,590. These devices use analog filters and color masks to modify the light reaching a user's eye. They are therefore limited to the specific color filtering provided by the individually configured lenses. Since analog filters can only remove or attenuate light of particular wavelengths, these filters also typically darken the resulting image, which may often reduce visibility. Analog filters do not have the ability to add or amplify light, which would be useful in some situations where normal light is too low, such as for night vision.
Other types of vision enhancement devices include “night vision” goggles and cameras, which use more specialized (often analog) technique to represent a particular non-visible set of frequencies. Here, most normal color images are replaced by a nearly monochromatic image showing a mapping of infrared light to a visible image.
More recently some computer and mobile phone based systems have emerged that provide limited digital processing of images to assist colorblind users. For example, Jones in US Patent Publication US20140153825 teaches a technique to add patterns to specified colors for display of images on a screen.
While the devices and techniques known in the art have proven helpful to some users, they have not provided full color vision to colorblind users. They have also been designed for very specific applications or categories of users. No general-purpose digitally programmable vision enhancement device is known in the art that can provide a flexible, configurable system for altering and enhancing images. No known system or method can alter or enhance images in multiple ways, including color transformations, addition of graphics or captions, magnifying images, or generating images that vary over time. No known systems provide flexible transformation and augmentation of images in the visible spectrum along with display of invisible frequencies such as infrared or ultraviolet. No known systems integrate such general and flexible image transformations into a vision enhancement device that can be embedded in glasses, contact lenses, binoculars, or other vision devices.
For at least the limitations described above there is a need for an image transforming vision enhancement device.